Speed: 5-7 day Days. Pseudo nightless (max 1 day Nights). Days will not end on weekend, (i.e. a Friday start will see a Monday finish). Deadline extensions given when needed. Lurkers will be replaced after modprod.

Bastardry: May include alignment or win-condition changing roles. Some hidden mechanics may be present. The mod will speak no word that is not true. What conclusions you draw from that is up to you. Unlike Aes Sedai, the mod will not deliberately try to mislead you though!

There are no spoiler-reading or PM-listening type roles.

No role is guaranteed to be sane.

No role may self-target or target dead players unless otherwise specified.

Role reveals are made the morning following death.

As the game is pseudo-nightless, please try to send night actions before the end of the day. Backups and simple conditionals are allowed.

Voting rules:

Spoiler:

Votes and questions must be posted in bold and on a new line, like this:

Vote: jimbobmacdoodle

You must unvote to change votes, in bold and on a new line, like this:

UnvoteVote: SDK

When someone gains a majority of the votes, they are automatically lynched, and daytime automatically ends whether or not the mod or a co-mod is online to declare day-end. Posting after the hammer vote is not allowed, even if the hammer-vote was accidental. If you see that a hammer vote has been placed, please delete any post you were going to post. It is ok to post simply to indicate that a hammer vote was placed.

If deadline is reached and no player has a majority of the votes, then the person with the most votes is lynched. If the votals are tied, then the player with the most who reached that total first will be lynched, unless all players have voted and exactly 2 people have been voted for. In that special case, there will be no lynch. If you don't understand this, please ask for clarification.

You can vote "No Lynch". If "No Lynch" gets the majority of the votes (or wins a tied votal), no one will be lynched.

Posting rules:

Spoiler:

No posting in this thread unless you are playing in it.

No talking about this game except in this thread or in an appropriately titled spoiler in the discussion thread.

No editing your posts. For any reason, at any time unless explicitly told to do so by the mod or co-mod.

Do not lurk! Lurkers risk being replaced.

You may post in thread until a hammer vote is placed or the mod or a co-mod declares the day over. The mod will not declare day over until after the deadline.

If all players explicit say they are happy to end the day early, e.g. because of an unbreakable tie, the mod may end the day before the deadline.

You may not quote directly from your role PM or anything else from the mod or co-mod. Paraphrasing is fine.

Only use bold text for voting, unvoting, asking the mod questions or stating important information (e.g. being away for 2-3 days). FoSses and similar may also be in bold.

No reading spoilered posts for this game in the discussion thread.

Mod statements (apart from these rules) will be posted in bold.

Death rules:

Spoiler:

You’re alive until the mod tells you that you're dead, by PM or in thread.

Once you die, you may no longer post in this thread, but you may read spoilers in the discussion thread. That is your consolation prize.

Any exceptions to these rules will be explicitly stated in a player's role PM.

Private Message rules:

Spoiler:

You can ask the mod questions by PM if you'd rather not ask in thread.

No PMing other players concerning this game unless your role specifically allows it and you CC the mod and co-mod in every communication.

Flavour:

Spoiler:

Flavour will be posted in italics.

As lynching wasn't a particularly common thing in the Wheel of Time universe, a lynched or otherwise killed player may for purposes of flavour not be killed, but may be thrown into a dark cell, exiled, or otherwise removed from the scene of action. In any case, the mod will refer to them as being "dead" for clarity in bold.

Characters mentioned in flavour may not be present in the game.

The mod may include hints as to night actions in the flavour text, but then again may not.

The game is set primarily during the events of the 4th book, and possibly onwards, depending on what happens in the game. Apologies for any unexpected spoilers!

Unlike the previous game, most or all players will not have characters that feature in the books.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Fingers of the Dragon off the coast of Tear. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

Past the great city it blew, ever heading north along the River Erinin. Boats and ships of all styles and sizes bobbed at anchor or made use of the wind’s strength as it rushed past.

Onwards it continued until another great city stood on an island in the midst of the river. Six sturdy bridges radiated out from the city to the banks and gleaming walls surrounded the majestic buildings of Tar Valon.

Past the ships moored at anchor in South Harbour and up the streets blew the diminishing breeze, onwards into the heart of the city where a single slender building rose well above all other structures, the White Tower. The chill breeze was welcomed by the sweating novices in dirty dresses doing chores in the kitchens. Aes Sedai in the dining room simply ignored it as with other trivial concerns.

Up the steps and into the Ajah quarters it swirled and into the study of the leader of the sisters. Siuan Sanche, Amyrlin Seat of the White Tower sat at her desk studying reports from eyes and ears from across the known world. From invaders to the West to reports of Aiel raiders in the South, it was clear that this was going to be a difficult time. And that was before considering the now openly declared Dragon Reborn. Moiraine had better be handling him properly.

More concerning to her however were happenings here in her own domain. Rumours of discontent with her leadership had reached her ears, although this was hardly unusual. It was also not that long ago that a whole group of Sisters had fled the Tower, stealing many ter’angreal. Whilst many sisters were still in denial over its existence, it was clear to her that the Black Ajah had decided to step up and intervene in affairs more directly. Something needed to be done.

It was unclear to her who she could trust. She would need to tread carefully. Then again, the traitors would know that she was likely investigating them. Considering her options, she decided to send a message to a number of the Aes Sedai:

“You have all no doubt heard about the treachery of some among us. This must be put to a stop. I am hereby tasking each of you with finding out who these people are. Each day, you will meet in secret, and disguised so that those who may try to spy on you cannot. The first meeting will take place at noon at the back of the 4th Depository of the Great Library. Do whatever is necessary to eliminate this threat.”

@Sabrar: I've played a handful of games here on xkcd, but that's it. I consider myself only slightly more than a complete newbie. It's still newbie-ish enough that I really can't say that I have any particular preferences when it comes to game-style.

As far as it goes, I'm going to be incommunicado Thursday afternoon through Saturday afternoon, so would strongly prefer a deadline that was after the weekend rather than before.

Sabrar wrote:@ahippo: I haven't had the chance to play with you before, are you experienced Mafia players? Do you have any preferences regarding game-style or whatever?

I've got a couple games under my belt here on xkcd Mafia. I was never a particularly good player, but I had fun. I was bored one night and decided to check up on this community since it had been a while and lo-and-behold one of my favorite series was getting the mafia treatment and I could sign up! In the past year or so, I've played quite a few games of One Night Ultimate Werewolf with the smartest friends I have and have gotten pretty good, so I may be better this time around. No guarantees, though. For now I'm not expecting to be much of a leader.

My job allows me to check in pretty often so I'm going to be active. I'm very familiar with The Wheel of Time so we'll see if that becomes useful at some point other than for mild, fun roleplaying. If not, so be it. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

So it seems likely that there is more than one anti-town faction, or maybe one anti-town one neutral. Obviously, it's possible for the Amyrlin to die or get deposed so there's probably a mechanic to instate another one. I'll have to go back and read the first game, but it seems like a pretty power-heavy setup too. I'm expecting a lot of craziness.

Ok, let’s see. I don’t always get to post in the first page. Games always seem to start up when I’m at work and by the time I get home I’m usually the last one to post. I guess I’ll start with setup speculation:

2 power mafia1 true independent1 independent that is either pro-town or pro-mafia1 independent recruiter7 power town, of which there are 1-2 players that think they’re town but can be recruited

ahippo wrote:So it seems likely that there is more than one anti-town faction, or maybe one anti-town one neutral. Obviously, it's possible for the Amyrlin to die or get deposed so there's probably a mechanic to instate another one.

So, how is this obvious from the opening flavor? I also have more than one anti-town faction in my setup spec, but mine is just speculation. You seem more certain.

I don’t random vote, when I place a vote it will be serious. It seems a little too early to place a serious vote, so instead I will do this:

FoS dimochka

1. For posting game content during the confirmation phase. While this was not specifically prohibited in the opening post, it’s going against tradition to post game content until the mod officially starts the game.2. The militant atheist is one of the most annoying roles ever invented. If you are really a militant atheist, I would like to see you removed from the game. The only ways to do this are to lynch you or the mod, and either way is a waste of the town’s lynch, making this a very non-pro-town role. But if we don’t get rid of you, town can never trust that you will be playing on our side.3. You might really be scum, and your claim is a distraction, so that we waste half a day discussing the annoyingness of this role instead of scum hunting.

SirGabriel, how about posting some content? Something more than letting us know you read the signup thread.

ahippo wrote:So it seems likely that there is more than one anti-town faction, or maybe one anti-town one neutral. Obviously, it's possible for the Amyrlin to die or get deposed so there's probably a mechanic to instate another one.

So, how is this obvious from the opening flavor? I also have more than one anti-town faction in my setup spec, but mine is just speculation. You seem more certain.

I received a PM from the mod indicating that there is a faction in the game with a particular win condition, and that this information was sent to all players. The win condition in question appears to be neither town nor mafia (and jimbob would not have needed to mention it if it was one of those), which implies there is a third faction in addition to town and mafia. I assume ahippo followed similar logic.I am completely flavor-blind (I've never even heard of the book/series/whatever this is based on), so I can't guess exactly what this third faction's win condition would entail, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's either pro-town or anti-town rather than neutral. Ahippo, who admits to having flavor knowledge, seems to think it is most likely anti-town or possibly neutral, and I would like to hear his reasoning behind that, as well as the opinions of anyone else with sufficient flavor knowledge to make an educated guess.

bessie wrote:FoS dimochka

1. For posting game content during the confirmation phase. While this was not specifically prohibited in the opening post, it’s going against tradition to post game content until the mod officially starts the game.2. The militant atheist is one of the most annoying roles ever invented. If you are really a militant atheist, I would like to see you removed from the game. The only ways to do this are to lynch you or the mod, and either way is a waste of the town’s lynch, making this a very non-pro-town role. But if we don’t get rid of you, town can never trust that you will be playing on our side.3. You might really be scum, and your claim is a distraction, so that we waste half a day discussing the annoyingness of this role instead of scum hunting.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it seems like bessie is fixating excessively on one little joke. On the other hand, I've seen good scumhunters locate scum based on a single joke that was just slightly off. I never would have noticed anything odd about it on my own, but now that bessie mentioned it, is seems worth considering. IGMEOY both dimochka and bessie.

SirGabriel wrote:ahippo, who admits to having flavor knowledge, seems to think it is most likely anti-town or possibly neutral, and I would like to hear his reasoning behind that, as well as the opinions of anyone else with sufficient flavor knowledge to make an educated guess.

You're right that it was the PM to all players that gave me that thought. But having read the whole series, especially The Shadow Rising, there are a whole lot of different influences in The White Tower. The Black Ajah are the most obvious evil, and I would be surprised to find out they aren't our primary antagonist. There are dream-walkers from Tel'aran'rhiod (jeez this series has silly names, doesn't it?) who are murderers or just people from different cultures. There are various factions who end up deposing Siuan Sanche as Amyriln during the events of TSR. There are the Seanchan who infiltrated The White Tower but only later in the series, so that seems less likely right now. There were even Black Ajah who were secretly working against the Forsaken etc, so there's a lot for any moderator to go off of when creating a mafia setting for it. I guess if I were to update my sentiments on that PM, whomever has that win condition is likely pro-town but don't care who's Amyriln. That's why I'm nearly certain the Amyrlin can be killed or deposed. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was one true independent, regardless.

bessie wrote:FoS dimochka

I can't think of a single character other than The Dark One who has a direct confrontational relationship with The Creator, and even then not really. I'm more inclined to take this as a joke, but I've been away from the game a while, so maybe you have a point.

From the flavor, we are running "parallel" to the primary action of the books — most of what happened in the White Tower happened in the background. In the books, the Red Ajah (spurred on secretly by the Black) unites a group to raise a Red to the Amrylin and (unknowingly) a Black to the position of Keeper of Secrets.

Are people saying that a second PM came directed to all, in addition to the Role PM? Because I received no such "extra" information. Which is not to say that the information might have been in my PM to begin with. Maybe only non-town got a second PM?

1. For posting game content during the confirmation phase. While this was not specifically prohibited in the opening post, it’s going against tradition to post game content until the mod officially starts the game.

Quick post as it's 1am here.For what it's worth, I would never post any remotely relevant content in the confirmation phase, as I assume that it's reserved for confirmation only. However, when I get back to this after work, I will consider people's reactions to my joke. I already have some thoughts around it...

If you're curious about the origin of my avatar, google "Cheburashka".

I made a mistake when sending out an additional round of PMs over the weekend, whereby I accidentally didn't send them to a minority of players. I will send these players that information, but probably not for a few hours, due to work. As getting bogged down in whether or not a player received a particular PM is not really the intention of the game, I am going to ask that people refrain from now on from claiming whether or not they received the additional PM, although it should be noted that the lack or receipt of a PM does not necessarily indicate alignment. If anybody has any questions or concerns on the matter, please ask by PM.

Also, deadline is now set for Monday, 23rd Jan, 7pm UTC. This is a soft deadline, so you may continue posting until a mod calls day end. Night may last for up to 24 hours or so (but it may only be a few hours), depending on how long it takes me to write flavour and process night actions.

Ok, having read up a bit on the flavour, and judging by the opening flavour, it would seem that we are all, or meant to pretend to be, members of the Aes Sedai? And we would be attempting to stop the Black Ajah from taking over? So, mafia = black Ajah? Does anyone disagree?

ahippo seems to think that the Amerlyn Seat may be able to change hands? During the game, or as a result of the game?

bessie, what makes you think recruiter? I thought cult like abilities were frowned around here, I know no one wanted my cult game a while ago, but of course times might have changed.

((Work's gone weird this week, someone has had to take compassionate leave suddenly so we're scrambling a little to fill the gap - as such I'm tired and pressed for time, and will be for the first couple of RL days. Awesome timing, but I'm not the one who's taken leave so I'm counting myself lucky.))

Cult isn't frowned upon per se. There are players who strongly dislike, to the point that they'd rather know about it ahead of time so they can avoid signing up. Certainly it's considered bastard, but if it's known bastard then that's another thing entirely.

I seem to recall the last game in this series having a whole lot of chaos going on (perhaps not Hangafia levels, but still chaotic). I see no reason to expect otherwise for this game. The flavour suggests that we're all Aes Sedai. I thought for a moment that perhaps factions would be split out into the different Ajahs, but it makes more sense for it to be Black Ajah vs. The Rest, I guess. Given the nature of Black Ajah, it's possible that we have traitor roles floating around, as well.

bessie wrote:7 power town, of which there are 1-2 players that think they’re town but can be recruited

I can't make sense of this, could you please elaborate? Why do you think that only 1-2 townies can get recruited?

Carlington wrote:I seem to recall the last game in this series having a whole lot of chaos going on (perhaps not Hangafia levels, but still chaotic).

I wouldn't say the setup itself was chaotic, it just had an unusual indie-role, some redirection and a luck-based mechanic that turned against us.

However that gave me an idea to compare the current rules with the previous ones and there is big difference, the following parts have been omitted from the current version:

Spoiler:

3. This game has one town faction. The town faction wins when all anti-town factions are eliminated. Their win condition is "You win when all threats to the town have been eliminated."4. This game has at least one anti-town faction. Anti-town factions win when town and all rival anti-town factions are defeated.5. This game may or may not have third-party factions. Their win conditions may or may not coincide with town/anti-town win conditions. A third-party faction win does not prevent a win for one of the other factions.

This might mean that the setup is something completely different from the usual, for example multiple competing factions trying to get the Amyrlin Seat.

Put me down in the "Black Ajah = mafia" column. Since there are several other colors of Ajahs, there may be some secondary conditions about getting one's faction supremacy. Implication would be that while all non-Black Ajahs would be anti-mafia, there might not be a cohesive "town". I played one game with that kind of setup and it was slightly annoying until we got all the scum at once (was lights-out style).

Setup:

2 Black AjahGreen, Blue, Red Ajah

non-Ajah characters (?)

not sure if the flavor or source material would support a SK, but I'm never comfortable dismissing one right away.

The story of my life in xkcdmafia:

Tigerlion wrote:Well, I imagine as the game progresses, various people will be getting moody.

SirGabriel wrote: it seems like bessie is fixating excessively on one little joke.

1. How is this different from how I usually play?2. At the time you made this post, dimochka had not yet posted and claimed it was a joke.

mpolo wrote:I'm pretty sure that bessie's vote was a joke.

My FoS was serious, which is why it was an FoS and not a vote.

dimochka wrote:For what it's worth, I would never post any remotely relevant content in the confirmation phase, as I assume that it's reserved for confirmation only. However, when I get back to this after work, I will consider people's reactions to my joke. I already have some thoughts around it...

I now have the message for all and am trying not to jump to conclusions about things...

But based on that message, certain people seem to be considered "strong leaders", and it is important for at least one faction that one of those be on the Amrylin seat. From logic of the book this is fairly "town", as the Black Ajah wants to destabilize, at least long term (or put one of their own in power, which would also not fit with the given qualifications.

I suspect that Siuan Sanche is a "strong leader". Eliada, who replaced her in the books, was almost a puppet for the Black Ajah (AFAIK, just started volume 7). (I suspect Eliada has the "revealed" goal with an addition codicil that there's not a Blue on the Amrylin Seat.) There aren't all that many "named" figures in the White Tower at this point, though, so I don't know who I would consider a strong leader of those left.

Vote BessieSerious vote. To respond to your last post, yes it may be possible, but that's not how I play. So fmpov you are trying to nitpick something that I don't see to be relevant to the game (and to be fair I have 0 flavor knowledge so I didn't even know there was a creator and/or someone interacting with him). You can call it wine if you like. From my experience, I've seen scum do exactly what you're doing too many times. Sadly don't have time at work to look for specific games because this week is going to be crazy.

For the rest of the players - I don't plan to bring up the militant atheist idea again, so either lynch me for it or I'd prefer we don't waste time further discussing it. If you think I'm scummy for posting about it, that's fine, but I don't want to derail discussing towards "should we or should we not vote for the mod."

If you're curious about the origin of my avatar, google "Cheburashka".

mpolo wrote:But based on that message, certain people seem to be considered "strong leaders", and it is important for at least one faction that one of those be on the Amrylin seat. From logic of the book this is fairly "town",

I suspect that Siuan Sanche is a "strong leader". Eliada, who replaced her in the books, was almost a puppet for the Black Ajah.

From a reader's perspective, Elaida was a totally awful leader. From a character's perspective, many of the Aes Sedai think of her as strong. I think it's safe to assume she's part of the game. Whether she fits the win condition of someone strong being on the Amyrlin Seat, I'm not really sure.

Gopher of Pern wrote:ahippo seems to think that the Amerlyn Seat may be able to change hands? During the game, or as a result of the game?

Considering there's at least one person whose win condition is based on who is Amyrlin, (or maybe who isn't) I can only assume there must be some way to control who that is. I didn't consider that it might only be in the event of a general town victory that we could raise a new Amyrlin, should Siuan not be on it. That would be a reasonable way to handle it.

In any case, it's not super relevant right now. If all goes well, we'll never have to know how to raise a new Amyrlin. Six out of seven Ajahs recommend Colgate Total getting rid of darkfriends!

ahippo wrote:Six out of seven Ajahs recommend Colgate Total getting rid of darkfriends!

Now, this is a curious statement. I'm pretty sure all seven [official] ajahs would be completely down with getting rid of darkfriends. (For the flavorblind, the official ajahs are blue, red, green, white, grey, brown and yellow. The black ajah is an "unofficial" ajah that the Tower officially denies exists. Also, Elaida disbanded the blue ajah after her coup.) I'm frankly tempted to be all "you are Elaida Sedai and I claim my five pounds". But for now I'll leave it at:

FoS: ahippo

Largely because as terrible a person as Elaida was, she was not herself a darkfriend. And hopefully we can ferret ourselves out some black ajah.

ahippo wrote:Six out of seven Ajahs recommend Colgate Total getting rid of darkfriends!

Now, this is a curious statement. I'm pretty sure all seven [official] ajahs would be completely down with getting rid of darkfriends. (For the flavorblind, the official ajahs are blue, red, green, white, grey, brown and yellow.)

Honestly, I just forgot about the Greys, and I was including Black in that list. I meant seven out of eight.